About

I am Hrishikesh Ballal, but that much you must have figured out by the domain? Welcome to my website. I have had this site in one form or the other for the past 16 years or so.

I am Mechanical Engineer by training specializing in Engineering Design and Operations Research. I am also a PhD student at the Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London and with a focus on solving some of the problems around urbanization and the growth of cities. My research is around the urban planning process. I am also creator of Geodesign Hub a tool for collaborative urban planning.

I have intermediate level coding skills and after dabbling with a number of languages, I have settled down with Python. I love it, especially coming from a non-Computer Science background. I love product development, particularly building tools I love it because it teaches me a lot and I enjoy building something that other people use. It is also incredibly hard thing and one of the reasons I enjoy it so much.

My focus at work and study has always been a mixture of Design and Operations, I work at Microsoft as my day job. I have thoroughly enjoyed the fast paced pressure of Operations work combined with the creativity offered by design especially in the context of Systems Engineering. Additionally, I am very passionate about environmental issues especially with application of advanced technologies to the problem. Not so long ago, I was offered a fellowship to work on solving the collection and end-of-life aspects of e-waste in developing countries and it was the thesis for my degree, I worked on a number of issues around Waste Management and also built a electronic waste profiling survey, it is free to use and we have a small community that supports the site.

I am also a avid Podcaster, almost every week, you can listen to me on the TechCraft Podcast. It is where I and a few friends get together and talk about technology and just catch up. Subscribing to the show is the best way to keep in touch with me.

In the summer of 2007, I was involved in co-starting .com company with a friend which totally failed but the experience was invaluable and gave me a totally new perspective on failure. I feel like I have had many lives and in my previous life, I was involved with open source software (Fedora Core), car companies, United Nations, Japan, MIT among other things.

I moved to this domain some time ago. It is a bit long but that’s my name. In real life, everyone calls me Hrishi. The H is silent so it is pronounced as ‘Reeshee’. The etymology is religious related to Hinduism, personally, I blame it on the English language because there is no English equivalent to the original Sanskrit character.

This site is hosted on WordPress.com and you can subscribe to the Atom or RSS feed to get the latest, additionally I am on Twitter and App.net and if you want to get in touch, email is the best way to do so.